What Are We Made Of
by Alyssa2
Summary: There's a fine line between fear and courage, and it's not always easy to find... but maybe he's already found it.


There are times when Goofy wishes they could just go home.

Not that he'd think of going against his orders, or abandoning the King, or betraying their quest - no, not ever. Those things are all too important, and besides, it wouldn't be fair to Sora, leaving him to his destiny and the darkness without friends to guide him and help him remember how to laugh.

But he's afraid sometimes.

It's kind of stupid, and he doesn't say it aloud because Donald will go off screeching and anyway, admitting it would only make him feel worse. He's the king's captain, after all, a royal knight, and he has capital-D Duties he cannot turn from.

Only...

He remembers the cold frisson of terror the first time he and Donald were confronted with Heartless. How it clutched at his heart, scrabbled for purchase in his thoughts as those horrible shadows approached, all hooked claws and empty eyes and _darkness._ In all his years as a knight, that was the first time he'd seen anything like that, the first time he'd ever raised his shield knowing that it lay between the darkness and his life.

In all his years as a knight, it was the first time his life had needed to be defended.

So maybe it makes sense, then, the fear; the way he can never quite bring himself to look as he strikes and cracks and _crushes_, and the way sometimes he can only force his legs to move because Sora is running ahead with key in hand. It's still something he doesn't talk about. It just seems kind of ridiculous now, a knight who hates weapons and fears battle.

There certainly wouldn't be any sympathy from Donald. Donald raises his wand in challenge as Heartless seep from the darkness and surround them. He sweeps them away with fire and thunder and ice, wears the wind as armor and mends the wounds left by the grasping claws. If the wizard has any fear of them, Goofy hasn't seen it.

"Come on, Goofy, Sora!" Donald shrieks once, as the shadows twitch and tilt around them. "Let's show them what we're made of!"

"What _are_ we made of?" Goofy wonders aloud. His question is lost in the clash and chaos as the battle begins, so he gets no answer.

Fair enough. It's not an easy question to answer.

He finds himself hoping, against everything he knows, that each Heartless will be the last one, and that they'll turn the next corner and find King Mickey there with a smile and praise for a job well done. It's a frail little hope, sad and dwindling the further they go, as they learn of Maleficent and the Keyholes and the quest grows ever grander in scope; but it makes each battle a little easier, helps him endure as they're forced to run headlong against death again and again and again.

A knight captain who fears death. Donald would _scream_ at him.

But those shadows in Traverse Town were his first taste of true battle, captain though he was. Back home, there were no wars, there were hardly even scuffles for a knight to break up. By the time Goofy had been promoted, Knight Captain had been almost a prestige title. Knight Captain had meant a cushy spot in the castle, it had meant he could ensure comfort for his son. It was a title he could wear with honor, it was something Max could proudly tell his classmates, it was a mark of the King's regard - but it had never meant he'd actually had to _do_ anything.

Even Pete, when his familiar old pomp and bravado had soured and turned dark... for all the horror he had wrought, had never brought it to an actual _fight._

(In its way, that had been worse; without a way to strike back, the knights had only ever been able to clean up the mess, milling about like ants from an upturned hill. The Knight Captain of the time had wrung his hands and bitterly lamented his inability to take decisive action, while his knights kept the peace and Goofy wondered where things had gone so wrong.)

Through those first battles he feels almost stranded, paradoxically out of his element. It seems that even Sora is more comfortable fighting than he is, though he's clearly not any more used to the stakes. _What am I doing,_ he finds himself thinking, _what does it even mean to be a knight if I'm so scared?_

He had been standing gate duty when he saw the King leave, fists clenched and tail whipping, and hadn't even needed to ask where he was going. "The King's heart is as big as the King is small," they said often in the guard, and Goofy could only imagine how the King's vast heart must have hurt to see his people struggling in the wake of Pete's chaos. He would never again see His Majesty as enraged as he had been that day, or as grim and solemn as when he returned with news of the banishment.

Goofy'd had mixed emotions about the whole affair from start to finish, but as he saw the diminuitive King stalking out into the world with the fury of titans, his foremost thought was to be glad it was His Majesty going to battle, and not him.

_What does it even mean to be a knight?_

The question skitters around the dark recesses of his mind, a persistent spectre that rises with his fear.

But.

After Pete's fall, before his banishment, in that smear of time where everything had gone upside-down and broken and wrong...

He remembers the tranquility, the exact words he had been exchanging with the young flower seller when he heard the explosion, far away and already too late to stop it but not too late to _help_. He remembers how he ran for all he was worth, howling _Make way, make way,_ as he clattered through the streets. He remembers the air thick with ash, making his comrades-in-arms into blurry silhouettes around him. He remembers his hands, two among many, helping to heave away the debris until the light showed them a tear-streaked face smudged with ash; he remembers gathering the woman into arms that trembled with exertion but stayed strong now, when they were so needed, and guiding her away from the wreckage and to a family that sobbed in relief.

The Heartless slam against his shield; he pushes them back, covering his eyes as he surges forward against them, bringing his shield to bear with crushing force. Behind him, Sora lifts his head and gives him a thankful grin before darting out into the fray again, Keyblade flashing bright through the shadows.

_What_ are _we made of?_

It's not an easy question to answer with words.

But there's no words that fit the memory in Goofy's heart, the answer he finds as he learns, fight by fight, to set aside the fear. He learned a little bit of it, on that day. And he thinks, as long as he follows that crown-marked key, as long as he stays by his old friend and the child-hero they're protecting, and sets his shield between the darkness and their lives, he'll learn some more of it.

They make camp sometimes, if the world they're in has no place to stay; Sora and Donald chatter (for all that they fight, he thinks sometimes Donald is happy to have someone who talks as much as he does) and Sora laughs, bright and warm in the darkness, and Goofy just looks up at the stars. Sometimes one of them winks out, and that stings; but there's still a sky full of them. And maybe, maybe the ones that have gone out can shine again someday, with their help.

He's starting to think he knows what it means to be a knight.

It's not too different from being a friend.


End file.
